don't have a car," Jenny pointed out as she and Megan stood on the sidewalk in front of the hospital. "How are we going to get home?"
"There's a taxi stand across the street," Megan said. So what if they had to eat spaghetti for the next month. The important thing was to put as much distance between her and Jake as she possibly could. She's not my little girl.... His words echoed in her brain again and again. She's not my little girl....
That was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? She wanted Jenny all to herself. No father to break her daughter's heart. For six years it had seemed so clear cut, so right, that she'd never questioned her position. Now the questions she'd tried so hard to avoid were crowding in on her, pushing against her heart, forcing her to acknowledge that the choices she'd made might no longer be the right ones. Not for her.
And especially not for Jenny.
"Mommy!" Jenny tugged at her hand. "You're walking too fast."
She stopped on the curb and glanced up and down the street. "Sorry, honey."
"Why are you in such a rush?"
"Aren't you hungry for lunch?" she asked with forced cheer. "I want to get us a cab and get home."
"But you said we can have burritos for lunch."
They stepped off the curb. "I'll make you burritos at home."
"Your burritos aren't as good as the ones at Pepito's."
"Thanks a lot," Megan said as they reached the middle of the street. "Maybe we can--"
The screech of brakes seemed to come from nowhere as the truck rounded the corner of the parking lot, barreling straight toward them.
#
Jake didn't know what made him turn around. The whine of the auto's engine. Jenny's scream. The bone-deep knowledge that everything he loved, everything that mattered was about to be taken away from him.
He saw the truck bearing down on them. He saw the desperation on Megan's face, the terror on Jenny's.
"Move!" he screamed as he vaulted over a parked car and ran toward them. "Move!"
But they were frozen in place by fear.
Faster...he had to run faster...his lungs burned...adrenaline...he needed that one last burst of adrenaline to push him over the edge....
The truck was a few yards away from them. He could smell the exhaust. A handful of seconds were all he had left.
With a cry that seemed to come from the depths of his soul he hurtled toward them and prayed it wasn't too late.
Chapter Ten
"Never saw anything like it," said a man who'd watched the whole thing happen. "He threw himself right in front of that truck and saved their lives. Guy's a hero, if you ask me."
The policeman nodded, writing down the information in an official-looking pad. "Driver was under the influence," he said with a shake of his head. "Never saw the woman and her little girl."
"Most amazing thing I ever saw," said the witness. "Not too many heroes in this world. Wish I could shake that guy's hand and tell him so."
A hero, Megan thought numbly as she stood in the hallway and watched the emergency room doctors working on Jake. For as long as she could remember she'd been looking for a hero and he'd been there right under her nose all the time.
"Mommy, what's going to happen to him?" Jenny, blessedly unscratched, stood next to Megan, her golden eyes wide with fright. "Will he die?"
"He wouldn't dare," Megan said, fighting back her tears. "Not now."
"He jumped right in front of the truck, mommy, like he wasn't afraid of anything in the whole world."
"I know," Megan whispered. "And he did it for us."
"Ma'am." A doctor appeared at her side. "We'd really like to take a look at that bump on your head."
Megan brushed him away. "I'm fine. Worry about Jake."
"You're going to have one nasty bruise." The doctor observed her more closely. "And a black eye if I don't miss my guess."
"Later," she said. "I'll worry about it later." She didn't care if she had two black eyes. Nothing mattered. All she could do was watch as the doctors mumbled over Jake's still body in the next room, whispering things she didn't want to understand.
"Mommy, I want to stay with you." Jenny's eyes seemed too large in her pale face.
"I know you do, honey, but I think you should go visit with Aunt Ingrid for a while."
"But I just saw Aunt Ingrid before."
"Maybe you could watch Charlie nurse."
"What if Jake wakes up and wants to see me?"
"If he does I'll come and get you."
"Really?"
"You